Houdini Engine

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Houdini Engine

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Houdini Engine lets you load Houdini Digital Assets into other digital content creation apps such as Autodesk Maya, Cinema 4D or the Unity or Unreal Game Editors. You can also use the Houdini Engine API to create your own plug-ins for proprietary applications. In batch mode, Houdini Engine can also be used on the farm when you distribute key tasks such as rendering, simulation, motion and geometry caching.

SideFX Plug-ins

AUTODESK MAYA

With the Houdini Engine, Houdini Digital Assets can be loaded into Autodesk® Maya® with procedural controls available to artists. These assets can interact with Maya geometry and the results can be rendered in the Maya UI.

Batch Processing

A Houdini Engine license can also be used to batch process Houdini scenes on the farm. Whether you are rendering to Houdini Mantra, processing a large fluid sim or combining a library of assets into a single scene, Houdini Engine provides behind-the-scenes control. Here is a taste of the kinds of things you can do with Houdini Engine on your farm nodes.

Distributed Rendering

Houdini’s Mantra renderer works by processing scene description [.ifd] files created by Houdini at render time. To free up your workstation from this task, you can utilize Houdini Batch to create these .ifd files then send them to the unlimited Mantra tokens which come free with each license of Houdini. Houdini Batch can also output scene files for other renderers such as .rib files for RenderMan.

PYRO FX | Distributed Sims

To create smoke and fire, VFX artists can turn to Houdini’s Pyro FX tools to simulate and render volumetric fluids. Just like FLIP fluids, you can partition these fluids and distribute the parts to your farm using Houdini Batch. The speed and memory advantages make this a great way to meet key deadlines. You can also break Pyro FX simulations into unique clusters to more efficiently distrubute the parts.

FLUIDS | Distributed Sims

In Houdini, FLIP fluids provide a unique combination of particle and fluid dynamics to create realistic simulations of flowing and splashing liquids. In Houdini, these processor-heavy calculations can be sliced into smaller simulations that are distributed to the farm. These slices not only speed up your overall simulation time but also allow for bigger overall sims because the total memory used is split into smaller, more manageable chunks.

WEDGING

To quickly explore multiple iterations in Houdini, you can turn the Wedge tool to re-render or re-simulate a shot multiple times, using different parameter settings. This approach lets you easily compare results with different values. Houdini Batch can be used to rapidly generate different wedges and can add text to the output file name or stamp a settings watermark on the resulting images to identify the impact of each wedge on the result.

GEOMETRY

As an animation or VFX is passed from the creation stage to final output, it is often useful to cache out geometry to disk using either .bgeo or Alembic files to lock down motion and deformation and make the rendering process more secure. Houdini Batch can be used to manage this output as changes are made to your scenes and assets. This geometry could be a deforming character, points from a particle sim or a surfaced fluid simulation.

Pipeline Tools

SCRIPTING

Python can be used to launch and drive Houdini Batch from within your existing pipeline. You can use scripting to make Houdini Batch a part of your wider pipeline and to integrate it fully into your workflow. You can also use scripting inside your Houdini scene files to customize your solution using either Python or Houdini's hscript.

HQUEUE

Studios can integrate Houdini Batch into their existing queuing solution or use HQueue, a free Python-based job manager to distribute simulations, renderings and other Houdini processes. The same HQueue technology is used by Houdini to connect artists to the Amazon EC2 Compute Cloud which provides access to render nodes for a reasonable hourly rate.

SCENE BUILDING

With Houdini’s Digital Asset technology it is possible to encapsulate and store scene components into easily updatable parts, then manage the scene layout using an external asset management system. With Houdini Batch, asset-based scenes can be easily built on the farm. This approach ensures that the latest assets are in place and makes it easy to re-process shots using updated assets down the line.

FREE 30 DAY Trial

To access the free trial of a commercial version of Houdini Engine, download the Houdini installer and run it on your computer. Be sure to check off the Houdini Engine plug-in you want to work with. This will install the Houdini software and put the plug-in in the desired location. Instructions for each plug-in can be found above in the LEARN MORE sections of each plug-in. Once the plug-in is in place, you can load up your first asset and Houdini will prompt you for a license. At this point, you can choose the 30-day free trial license and the Houdini Engine will be available to you.